For more than one hundred years, government officials have decried the difficulty many Americans face when they attempt to buy a home. Indeed, housing affordability has become a rallying cry for both progressives and conservatives. Their solutions invariably involve one scheme or another for how to distribute the existing housing stock. Those solutions will fail,…
As I point out in my book, The Affordable Housing Crisis: Causes and Cures, for more than one hundred years housing policy has been dominated by the same flawed framework. Each “new” housing policy simply repeats policies that have previously failed. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is an example. He ran on a promise…
In my book, The Affordable Housing Crisis: Causes and Cures, I examine the framework that has dominated government housing policies for the past one hundred years. No matter which party is in power, government housing policies have consistently used a combination of carrots and sticks. Carrots are used to incentivize actions desired by the government,…
With an estimated 75,500 homeless individuals in Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles mayor is calling upon “the most fortunate” to donate to a new housing program called LA4LA. The mayor stated that the program’s success will depend on the “humanity and generosity of the private sector.” The mayor is counting on altruism—self-sacrifice for others—to…
Justin Walker and Pratik Shah are the owners of Justice Inc, a business in Houston that provides intellectual bodyguard services. Traditional bodyguards protect others from physical threats. Intellectual bodyguards protect others from intellectual threats–bad ideas. Shortly after the COVID pandemic begins, Justice Inc finds itself embroiled in a battle against government officials in both the…
As energy expert Alex Epstein points out in Fossil Future, before we begin to analyze any idea or policy, we must first establish the proper standard of value. We must identify the goal or value that we seek, and then evaluate alternatives against this standard. Housing activists ignore this sage advice. Instead, they found their…
Those engaged in policy debates often make arbitrary assertions. The arbitrary can take many different forms, but it always includes a claim with no reference to actual facts. It is an assertion without evidence to validate it. Because it has no cognitive value, we should reject the arbitrary out of hand. An example comes from…
We are often told that a worker making the minimum wage can’t afford the rent for an apartment. As an example, a website covering housing issues in Massachusetts tells us that a minimum wage employee must work 104 hours in order to afford a studio apartment. Whether a particular article supports a higher minimum wage,…
California legislators are considering a bill that would make the “right” to housing a part of the state’s constitution. Not surprisingly, supporters of the bill are unable to define how this alleged right would actually be implemented. Equally unsurprising, non-supporters of the bill are not challenging the fundamental premises underlying it. The author of the…
In my book, The Affordable Housing Crisis: Causes and Cures, I examine many different policies that have impacted the affordability of housing in the United States, including single-family zoning and federal highway policies. One policy that I did not examine, but which has a significant impact on housing, is minimum parking requirements. CNN reports that…
One’s credit score determines one’s ability to obtain loans at favorable rates. Those with a higher credit score are deemed to pose fewer risks. Over time, they have demonstrated the ability to borrow judiciously and pay back their loans. Those with less stellar credit scores haven’t. But now, the Biden administration wants to punish those…
In November 2021, voters in St. Paul approved one of the nation’s most stringent rent control laws. The law was later amended to loosen the controls slightly. However, that did little to motivate the construction of new housing. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reports that building permits in St. Paul fell…